Previews

Darkwatch

First up, the controls are very solid. Jericho moves, jumps and shoots with ease, making for an enjoyable experience from the first moment you grab the controller. As a half-vampire, he's privy to a some pretty cool abilities, including the ability to absorb blood clouds for health regeneration, and the all-important super power-ups known as the Judgement powers. There are four inherently good Judgement powers and four evil ones. At key moments throughout the single-player campaign, Jericho will be faced with game-stopping choices. Do you suck the infected wound clean on the villager, or do you feast on her blood? Depending on which route you choose, you'll gain either the good or evil powers.

On the good side, there's Silver Bullet (increased shot damage), Fear (panic enemies), Mystic Armor (take less damage) and Vindicator (chain lightning attacks). On the evil side, there's Blood Frenzy (increased melee damage), Turn (makes enemies obey you for a limited time), Black Shroud (gain armor and damage output) and finally Soul Stealer (quick kills from multiple critters). Of course, it'll take you quite a while to gain access to all four abilities, but these powers do add a nice unique flavor to the gameplay overall.

More standard moves come in the form of a vampiric double-jump and glide, along with blood vision -- which acts like a limited infravision and zoom function rolled into one. When using blood vision, NPCs and enemies are lit up bright for easy spotting, as are key items and triggers used to solve basic puzzles: e.g. a dynamite plunger will glow in order to blow a mine entrance open, allowing progression further into the level.

So Jericho's not without a decent arsenal of specials at his disposal. Now let's turn our attention to the weapons. Each gun or bow has a great graphical look, sporting the holy cross symbols of the Darkwatch society. The basic weapon is the Redeemer pistol, which can be "fanned" old-school style for a rapid fire motion. It's possible to grab two of these sucks and dual wield 'em to devastating results. Although a little inaccurate, the pistol is pretty sweet. Then there's the carbine rifle, with its good stopping power and range; the shotgun with its wide arch of fire and killer close-up stopping power, and the long ranged sniper rifle for taking down those pesky campers.

But my favorite weapon so far is the crossbow. This puppy fires explosive-tipped arrows that detonate a few seconds after they stick a target. It's great fun to watch the undead massed react in panic as they run for cover, only to have their legs blown clean off and their torsos rocketed into the sky a few moments later. Secondary weapons include blocks of dynamite which can be thrown, and also the melee attack for each of the main weapons. While traditionally weak in first-person shooter, these close combat attacks are pretty devastating in Darkwatch.

That brings me nicely to the enemy AI and the physics engine used. HAVOK's physics engine takes care of the rag doll stuff in the game, and for the most part, the AI does a decent job of controlling the monsters as you'd expect -- read, they come at you in waves and don't really stop until they win or are scared off by a well-placed lit stick of dynamite. It's nothing revolutionary, but it gets the job done nicely.

In terms of the offline multiplayer game, Darkwatch offers five different modes of play, with variable maps and tweakable parameters. So far, it's not up there with the likes of Halo 2 by any means, but it is a bunch of fun to kick back and take down three close friends on the same TV. As previously mentioned, this is limited to two peeps on a TV for the PS2 revision, which is not quite as much fun.